Curated from MIT Technology Review — Here’s what matters right now:
This is today’s edition of The Download , our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Meet the AI honorees on our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2025 Each year, we select 35 outstanding individuals under the age of 35 who are using technology to tackle tough problems in their respective fields. Our AI honorees include people who steer model development at Silicon Valley’s biggest tech firms and academic researchers who develop new techniques to improve AI’s performance. Check out all of our AI innovators here , and the full list—including our innovator of the year— here . How Yichao “Peak” Ji became a global AI app hitmaker When Yichao Ji—also known as “Peak”—appeared in a launch video for Manus in March, he didn’t expect it to go viral. Speaking in fluent English, the 32-year-old introduced the AI agent built by Chinese startup Butterfly Effect, where he serves as chief scientist. The video was not an elaborate production but something about Ji’s delivery, and the vision behind the product, cut through the noise. The product, then still an early preview available only through invite codes, spread across the Chinese internet to the world in a matter of days. Within a week of its debut, Manus had attracted a waiting list of around 2 million people. Despite his relative youth, Ji has over a decade of experience building products that merge technical complexity with real-world usability. That earned him credibility—and put him at the forefront of a rising class of Chinese technologists with global ambitions. Read the full story . —Caiwei Chen Help! My therapist is secretly using ChatGPT In Silicon Valley’s imagined future, AI models are so empathetic that we’ll use them as therapists. They’ll provide mental-health care for millions, unimpeded by the pesky requirements for human counselors, like the need for graduate degrees, malpractice insurance, and sleep. Down here on Earth, something very different has been happening. Last week, we published a story about people finding out that their therapists were secretly using ChatGPT during sessions. In some cases it wasn’t subtle; one therapist accidentally shared his screen during a virtual appointment, allowing the patient to see his own private thoughts being typed into ChatGPT in real time. As the writer of the story, Laurie Clarke, points out, it’s not a total pipe dream that AI could be therapeutically useful. But the secretive use by therapists of AI models that are not vetted for mental health is something very different. James O’Donnell, our senior AI reporter, had a conversation with Clarke to hear more about what she found . This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here . What’s next in tech: the breakthroughs that matter Some technologies reshape industries, whether we’re ready or not. Join us for our next LinkedIn Live event o
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Original reporting: MIT Technology Review